AI Agenda by Stephanie Palazzolo — The Information

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AI Agenda

By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

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OpenAI Moves to Lessen Reliance on Some Nvidia Hardware

By Anissa Gardizy · Apr 1, 2024 7:15am PDT · 2 comments

After breaking the news on Friday about how Microsoft and OpenAI are drawing up plans for an ambitious data center project costing as much as $100 billion, we were bombarded with questions from people across the artificial intelligence and cloud industries: What part of the country will it be located in? What chips would it use? How would the... After breaking the news on Friday about how Microsoft and OpenAI are drawing up plans for an...

Photo via Midjourney

Why Two Models Are Better Than One

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 28, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

You may have heard of the saying, “two heads are better than one.” The same could be said about large language models.Yes, developers have figured out that model performance can be improved by combining a couple of LLMs. The concept behind "model merging" is surprisingly intuitive. Developers combine the weights (or the “settings” that determine... You may have heard of the saying, “two heads are better than one.” The same could be said about...

Databricks headquarters in San Francisco. Photo by Tada Images/Adobe Stock.

Why the AI Hyperrealists at Databricks Spent $10 Million to Beat Meta’s LLM

By Amir Efrati · Mar 27, 2024 7:05am PDT · 1 comment

Perhaps no executive in the artificial intelligence field has gone to greater lengths to knock down generative AI hype quite like Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi. A year ago, that looked like sour grapes as OpenAI’s quick progress made many people think that software tools like those Databricks sells to companies to manage data and utilize AI would... Perhaps no executive in the artificial intelligence field has gone to greater lengths to knock...

Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images.

Big Tech Taps Their Founders As AI Talent Battle Heats Up

By Kalley Huang and Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 26, 2024 7:00am PDT

Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images.

Big Tech Taps Their Founders As AI Talent Battle Heats Up

By Kalley Huang and Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 26, 2024 7:00am PDT

In January, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video touting the 350,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units he said the company would have by the end of the year. While the post signaled Meta’s advantage in computing capacity, several current and former employees interpreted it simply as a way to improve Meta’s ability to recruit in... In January, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video touting the 350,000 Nvidia H100...

Photo via Adobe Stock

New RAG Techniques are Generative AI’s Greatest Hope

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 25, 2024 7:30am PDT

As time goes on and some buyers of generative AI grow disillusioned with the meager returns they’ve seen, many are experimenting with new ways to eke better performance out of large language models without paying up for the latest, state-of-the-art LLM.One way to do this is through a technique called retrieval augmented generation, which aims to... As time goes on and some buyers of generative AI grow disillusioned with the meager returns they’...

Photo via Shutterstock

What The Court Will Actually Scrutinize in Elon Musk v. OpenAI; Clearing Up GPT-5’s Timeline

By Kalley Huang · Mar 21, 2024 7:00am PDT

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the ChatGPT creator breached a founding agreement to develop artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity, not commercial interests, raises legal questions without clear precedent. It might not get very far.One big question is whether private individuals or companies can sue nonprofit... Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the ChatGPT creator breached a founding agreement to...

Mustafa Suleyman at the World Economic Forum in January. Photographer by Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

What (and Who) Mustafa Suleyman is Working With at Microsoft; What Perplexity’s Google Dependence Tells Us About the AI Race

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 20, 2024 7:15am PDT

Until Microsoft lit up the artificial intelligence world yesterday by appointing Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of AI startups DeepMind and Inflection, as head of its consumer AI business, the software giant lacked an executive who had built sophisticated generative AI models and products from scratch. As we’ve written, Microsoft’s own teams... Until Microsoft lit up the artificial intelligence world yesterday by appointing Mustafa Suleyman...

Photos via Adobe Stock.

OpenAI and Apple’s Rude Wake-Up Call

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 19, 2024 7:00am PDT

Photos via Adobe Stock.

OpenAI and Apple’s Rude Wake-Up Call

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 19, 2024 7:00am PDT

St. Patrick’s Day didn’t bring OpenAI or Apple much luck. Yesterday’s Bloomberg report that the iPhone maker is in talks to license Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence models to power new features for the iPhone was likely a blow to the ego of leaders at OpenAI, not to mention Apple’s own AI teams.It’s not yet clear what kind of valuable... St. Patrick’s Day didn’t bring OpenAI or Apple much luck. Yesterday’s Bloomberg report that the ...

Superlinked cofounders Ben Gutkovich and Daniel Svonava. Photo courtesy of Superlinked.

Apple’s Subtle Pitch to AI Researchers; Index Backs Former YouTube AI Manager in Latest ‘Vector Embedding’ Deal

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Wayne Ma · Mar 18, 2024 7:00am PDT

Before we get into this morning’s main funding news, here’s an interesting look into the strategy of Apple, which has caught flack from developers and industry pundits for falling behind Microsoft, Google and Amazon in releasing conversational AI. (That’s likely why it’s in talks with Google to license its generative AI tech for the iPhone,... Before we get into this morning’s main funding news, here’s an interesting look into the strategy...

The European Union Parliament building in Brussels. Photo by Thierry Monasse via Getty Images.

Europe’s AI Act Has Landed With Fewer Teeth Than Originally Proposed

By Kalley Huang · Mar 14, 2024 7:25am PDT

European Union lawmakers on Wednesday approved the world’s most sweeping regulation so far of artificial intelligence. The AI Act, which will take effect in stages over the next several years, will ban some applications of AI that the law considers high risk, such as social scoring. It will also require the developers of AI models to adopt... European Union lawmakers on Wednesday approved the world’s most sweeping regulation so far of...

Photo via Unsplash/Deep Mind.

A Shakeout is Coming for Inference Startups

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 13, 2024 7:00am PDT

If you tuned into Nvidia’s and Microsoft’s recent quarterly earnings calls, you probably heard their leaders discuss how inference—a fancy word for operating an artificial intelligence model—is becoming a bigger part of the computing workloads in their data centers. In other words, chatbots like ChatGPT Enterprise are serving real customers.... If you tuned into Nvidia’s and Microsoft’s recent quarterly earnings calls, you probably heard...

Art by Clark Miller.

Where Have All The AI Returns Gone?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 12, 2024 7:30am PDT

Art by Clark Miller.

Where Have All The AI Returns Gone?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 12, 2024 7:30am PDT

For all the hype around generative AI, we have yet to see much evidence that this new technology is lifting the top lines of customers who are spending money on it. That’s left many buyers to wonder: When will we see those long-touted returns from AI?My colleagues and I tackled that question in this story today, which reported that customers of... For all the hype around generative AI, we have yet to see much evidence that this new technology...

Photo by Kent Nishimura via Getty Images.

What To Make of OpenAI’s New Board; The Startup Tackling Karpathy’s Vision

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 11, 2024 7:30am PDT

OpenAI’s late-Friday announcement of three new board members, as well as the reinstatement to its board of CEO Sam Altman, is a pivotal moment for the ChatGPT-creator, valued most recently at $86 billion. It’s now clear that the board has shed its origins as a quirky group of academics and techies with ties to under-the-radar movements like... OpenAI’s late-Friday announcement of three new board members, as well as the reinstatement...

Photo via Midjourney.

Here's How Big Tech Is Tackling Deepfakes

By Kalley Huang · Mar 7, 2024 7:01am PST

Here’s an increasingly familiar feeling: You see an image and you can’t tell if it was made or manipulated using artificial intelligence. It’s a big problem, given the potential of fake images to influence elections, among other things. Fortunately, many of the companies whose technology makes it easy to create and spread AI-generated content... Here’s an increasingly familiar feeling: You see an image and you can’t tell if it was made or...

Photo via Getty Images.

How Early-Stage VCs Are Getting Around the Startup Valuation Trap

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 6, 2024 8:02am PST

The AI startup world is something of a paradox right now. We keep hearing talk that we're in a bubble. And there’s no doubt that venture funding for young artificial intelligence startups is (mostly) free-flowing, which is great for founders. But the market isn’t so great for investors, particularly early-stage VC firms which are often competing... The AI startup world is something of a paradox right now. We keep hearing talk that we're in a...

Taalas cofounder and CEO Ljubisa Bajic. Courtesy of Taalas.

The Startup Flipping Nvidia’s Playbook on its Head

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 5, 2024 7:00am PST

Taalas cofounder and CEO Ljubisa Bajic. Courtesy of Taalas.

The Startup Flipping Nvidia’s Playbook on its Head

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Mar 5, 2024 7:00am PST

And now for something completely different, as British comedy troupe Monty Python used to say. It’s no secret in the AI world that Nvidia’s success in selling AI chips lies partly in the chips’ flexibility. Developers can (relatively) easily tweak the chips to run different types of AI models. Taalas, a new AI chip developer, wants to go in the... And now for something completely different, as British comedy troupe Monty Python used to say. It...

Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba. Photo by Getty

What’s Behind Alibaba’s AI Funding Frenzy

By Juro Osawa · Mar 4, 2024 7:15am PST · 1 comment

Big tech companies the world over like to spread their bets on large language models. We’ve seen that with Microsoft—which backed OpenAI but has also struck deals with rivals Cohere and Mistral to make their models available to customers of Azure. (Microsoft also invested a tiny amount in Mistral). Similarly, Alibaba, China’s equivalent of ... Big tech companies the world over like to spread their bets on large language models. We’ve seen...

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Behind Meta’s Effort to Make Llama 3 More Engaging

By Kalley Huang · Feb 29, 2024 7:10am PST

“Promoting or encouraging harmful or illegal activities is not acceptable,” Meta AI, an artificial intelligence assistant, told me the other day. “It's important to respect the safety and well-being of individuals and property.”I had asked the assistant, which is embedded in Meta Platforms’ apps and Ray-Ban smart glasses, how to kill the engine... “Promoting or encouraging harmful or illegal activities is not acceptable,” Meta AI, an...

Art by Midjourney/Mike Sullivan.

Startups Are Using Questionable Metrics in an Effort to Raise Capital

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Feb 28, 2024 7:45am PST · 1 comment

Venture capitalists’ wallets are still open for artificial intelligence startups. But as the field has gotten more crowded, some startups that are raising new capital have leaned on metrics that don’t exactly scream confidence in their business prospects. They include the number of AI PhDs on staff, how many Nvidia AI chips the company has, and... Venture capitalists’ wallets are still open for artificial intelligence startups. But as the...

Parspec CEO Forest Flager. Photo courtesy of Parspec.

The Real Risk of Google’s Race Riot; Why Microsoft Took a Stake in Mistral; Your Next House Could Be Built With LLMs

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Jon Victor · Feb 27, 2024 7:00am PST

Parspec CEO Forest Flager. Photo courtesy of Parspec.

The Real Risk of Google’s Race Riot; Why Microsoft Took a Stake in Mistral; Your Next House Could Be Built With LLMs

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Jon Victor · Feb 27, 2024 7:00am PST

First, some news. As generative AI has seeped into a number of industries, from law to healthcare, industry-specific large language model startups have proliferated, as we showed in this analysis. But I was still surprised to come across a startup working to apply AI in a traditionally unsexy field: construction.Parspec, a startup that uses AI... First, some news. As generative AI has seeped into a number of industries, from law to healthcare...